Questions of authenticity and value are not new. Socrates objected to the introduction of writing – it compromised the value and authenticity of memory and as a result, knowledge. His own students saw the value of written material and thus accepted a different notion of authentic knowledge.
The digital transformation of higher education concerns both authenticity and value. Those interested in education are invested in questions of value. Those interested in the traditional college experience are invested in questions of authenticity.
On a traditional campus what takes place in the classroom has been assumed to be both valuable and authentic. Certain locations – the Ivies for example – have been thought to provide a higher value, albeit at a higher price. In contrast, digital educational formats provide few classrooms and little or no face-to-face experience. As a result, they are assumed to have questionable education value or authenticity.
The Ideal – It has been said that the perfect college education would be one student on the end of a log with the college’s president on the other end. By this measure a lecture class or even a small seminar is considered less authentic and less valuable than such a personal and singular experience. In the ideal view only face-to-face one-on-one engagement with a real professor could be authentic. In reality, the value propositions of scale and convenience never supported such an ideal.
Today’s collegiate ranking systems have a surrogate measure of authenticity – average number of students per faculty member. The lower the better. This measure is intended as an indication of the degree of individual attention that a student might experience. Thus when one hears of digital formats that have tens of thousands of students per faculty member, concerns about value and authenticity come quite naturally.
Value – At the same time that the value and authenticity of digital formats of higher education are being worked out, there are serious doubts about the value of the existing traditional form. In Academically Adrift, Arum and Rosksa make a convincing case that there is only modest academic value in much of higher education. Among their sobering survey findings is that 45% of undergraduate students do “not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during the first two years of college. This is a clear indication of the need for improvement in higher education teaching.
Some argue that even if learning is not as good as one would have hoped, there is still something inherently valuable and authentic about the college experience. The list includes face-to-face experience with an instructor, real engagement with one’s peers, and the socialization and maturation of shared experience. In extreme forms, the list goes on to include the joy of cramped dorm rooms and the excitement of raucous football weekends. These experiences may be authentic but they are also expensive. Surely the value of a college education and the expense of a campus need to be justified by more than the college experience.
Authenticity – While athletics and student housing may be part of the authenticity argument, they will be insufficient to insure institutional survival. To endure, campuses must be centered on education. They may be beautiful, historic and evocative, but these attributes will not be sufficient. Those places that are not effective in providing educational value – even though beautiful – will become the American equivalent of the grand country estates of England, museums of a faded golden age.
Until recently the survival of the traditional campus could be framed as a choice between the real thing and an ersatz version – the traditional experience or the online diploma. Degrees from Capella or Phoenix do have value. Their claims of authenticity are different. Credits from rapidly evolving online formats also have value. Their claims of authenticity are different still.
As students begin to rely on credits from a wide range of sources – traditional providers, alternative formats and various consortia – the distinction between degrees and certifications from most traditional institutions and non-traditional institutions will evaporate.
The traditional campus will continue to be viable only to the extent that it provides something irreplaceable – an authentic and better educational value. This irreplaceable value will lie in something other than football weekends and residence life. Railing against the devaluation of higher education through digital innovation will be as effective as Socrates was in deterring the use of writing. Concentrating on providing better educational outcomes, regardless of format, will be the only successful route.
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You have eloquently and cogently framed the teaching and learning debate. While the value of traditional undergraduate teaching and learning is under pressure, university research retains its high value. One added value of an undergraduate college within a research university is that undergraduates have the opportunity to participate in research. This participation is facilitated by providing undergraduate teaching laboratories in lab buildings occupied primarily by faculty and graduate student researchers.
Robert,
You are so right. The opportunity/encouragement to engage in undergraduate research may well be one of the enduring values of the traditional campus. While some science courses might work with the support of the ‘kitchen lab,’ I agree that the interaction with fellow students and more advanced researchers is enhanced by shared experience.